Japan and US upgrade military ties citing threat from China as ‘greatest strategic challenge’

US defence secretary says China is 'engaging in coercive behaviour, trying to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas’

Japanese and US defense chiefs, as well as top diplomats, agreed to further bolster their military cooperation by upgrading the command and control of US forces in the east Asian country and strengthening American-licensed missile production there, describing the rising threat from China as “the greatest strategic challenge.”

US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, joined their Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Minoru Kihara, at the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee in Tokyo – known as “2+2” security talks – where they reaffirmed their bilateral alliance in the wake of President Joe Biden ’s withdrawal from the November presidential race.